How do you like launching some of the applications running on a system, securely using a web browser?

Consider this simple scenario.

You have a system that is exposed to the internet. You are trying to get your partner engineer access your system {say using telnet or ssh}; but the partner engineer is not able to access it due to their corporate firewall.

One option for the partner engineer is to bypass their company's firewall somehow, then connect to the system that is accessible from the internet.

Another option is to install Sun Secure Global Desktop (aka Tarantella) on the system that was exposed to the internet; and letting the partner engineer access it using a standard web browser.

Here's a screen shot:

There are plenty of other options, but this blog entry focuses on Sun Secure Global Desktop option.

Are these settings OK? Y - Yes, install using these settings N - No, tell me more about the options and let me change the settings Q - Quit now

OK to use these settings? [Y] N

--------------------------------------------------------------------------Secure Global Desktop installation directory--------------------------------------------------------------------------Secure Global Desktop uses a single directory for all its code and otherstatic and dynamic components. Which directory would you like to use?

Are these settings OK? Y - Yes, install using these settings N - No, tell me more about the options and let me change the settings Q - Quit now

OK to use these settings? [Y] N

--------------------------------------------------------------------------Peer (internal) DNS name--------------------------------------------------------------------------Each computer on the network may have a number of DNS names. InSecure Global Desktop, the peer DNS name is the name by which this hostis known to others within your firewall, if you have one. If you'reusing an array of multiple Secure Global Desktop servers, this is thename used by other servers in the array to identify this server.

Peer DNS name [v490-a4] dummy.sun.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------HTTP port--------------------------------------------------------------------------Secure Global Desktop includes a web server. You need to choose the TCP porton which the web server listens for HTTP (unencrypted) connections.The default port for HTTP is 80/tcp.

# /export/home/ttaserv/bin/tarantella stop WARNING: Users are connected to this Secure Global Desktop server.Stopping the server will shut down any emulator sessions for these users.This may result in loss of data.

Are you sure you want to continue? [no] ySecure Global Desktop services have been stopped.